{"nrhp_refnum":"68000034","name":"Slabsides (John Burroughs Cabin)","other_names":["Slabsides"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"W of West Park","address_restricted":false,"city":"West Park","county":"Ulster County","state":"NY","lat":41.797470758500054,"lon":-73.97362724669806,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1968-11-24","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1968-11-24","areas_of_significance":["Conservation","Literature"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Slabsides is a rustic one-story log-and-slab cabin built in 1895 by naturalist-writer John Burroughs just west of West Park, Ulster County, New York, on a rocky ledge within the John Burroughs Sanctuary.","why_significant":"The cabin was Burroughs's summer residence and retreat, where he wrote many essays and entertained prominent visitors. Burroughs is credited with establishing the nature essay as a literary form and with helping create public support for conservation legislation. The cabin remains essentially unchanged, with the furniture he made by hand.","narrative":"Slabsides is a rustic cabin that naturalist and essayist John Burroughs built in 1895, with the help of a local carpenter, on a rocky ledge at the foot of a cliff west of West Park, New York. Its name comes from the bark-covered slabs on its outer walls. The single-story building has a stone chimney, a rustic porch and exposed log beams. Inside, one ground-floor room served as study, kitchen and bedroom, while the upper floor held a bedroom and a guest dormitory. Burroughs made much of the furniture himself from sumac, birch, hickory and hornbeam. He used the cabin as a summer retreat where he wrote essays later collected in Far and Near and The Ways of Nature, and he received many well-known guests there. Burroughs is credited with establishing the nature essay as a literary form and building public support for conservation. The cabin has changed very little since his death in 1921 and is preserved by the John Burroughs Memorial Association.","period_of_significance":"1900-","architect_builder":"John Burroughs","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Condition listed as excellent and unaltered; owned by the John Burroughs Memorial Association, with tours of the cabin by appointment and open houses twice a year.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:38.831259-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/68000034_NHL.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/68000034/d664bc8335-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/68000034/d664bc8335-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 2.5","author":"Bikeable","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Slabsides.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Bikeable</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 2.5</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Slabsides.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75316099","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slabsides","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5190056"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/ulster-county/slabsides-john-burroughs-cabin-68000034/"}